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Neuer set to return in goal for depleted Bayern as Musiala is out with illness

Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is set to return for Bayern Munich for the first time in more than a month in Saturday's Bundesliga game against Borussia Moenchengladbach but Jamal Musiala will miss out.

The 38-year-old Neuer missed Bayern's last four games of 2024 with a broken rib and wasn't in the squad for a friendly against Salzburg on Monday, but now looks fully fit again, coach Vincent Kompany said Friday.

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Bellingham leads Madrid to set up Spanish Super Cup final against Barcelona

Jude Bellingham scored again to lead Real Madrid into the Spanish Super Cup final with a 3-0 win over Mallorca in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

The England midfielder, who led Madrid in scoring last season, started this campaign slowly but has netted seven goals in his last eight Spanish league games.

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Turkey has no 'secret agenda' in Syria, minister says

Turkey “does not have any secret agenda” in Syria and wants to construct a “new culture of cooperation,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Friday.

One of Turkey’s priorities in the upcoming year is to clear the region of terrorism, Fidan said, referring to Kurdish militants based in northeast Syria. “The extensions of the separatist group in Syria are now facing destruction and the old order is no longer going to continue,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.

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Tanker hit by Houthi rebels that threatened Red Sea oil spill salvaged

An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea after being attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels and threatening a massive oil spill has been salvaged, a security firm said Friday.

The Sounion had been a disaster-in-waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard that had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by the Iranian-backed Houthis as part of their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. It took months for salvagers to tow the vessel away, extinguish the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.

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Trump to be sentenced in hush money case, days before he returns to the White House

In a singular moment in U.S. history, President-elect Donald Trump faces sentencing Friday for his New York hush money conviction after the nation's highest court refused to intervene.

Like so much else in the criminal case and the current American political landscape, the scenario set to unfold in an austere Manhattan courtroom was unimaginable only a few years ago. A state judge is to say what consequences, if any, the country's former and soon-to-be leader will face for felonies that a jury found he committed.

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Earth records hottest year ever in 2024, passing major climate threshold

Earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024, with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate threshold, several weather monitoring agencies announced Friday.

Last year's global average temperature easily passed 2023's record heat and kept pushing even higher. It surpassed the long-term warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit ) since the late 1800s that was called for by the 2015 Paris climate pact, according to the European Commission's Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom's Meteorology Office and Japan's weather agency.

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Italy's foreign minister heads to Syria to encourage post-Assad transition

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he will travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by Islamist insurgents, and said Europe should review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.

Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome on Thursday of foreign ministry officials from five countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States — after speaking earlier by telephone with his counterparts from Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

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Iran holds military drills as it faces rising economic pressures and Trump's return

Iran is reeling from a cratering economy and stinging military setbacks across its sphere of influence in the Middle East. Its bad times are likely to get worse once President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House with his policy of "maximum pressure" on Iran.

Facing difficulties at home and abroad, Iran last week began an unusual two-month-long military drill. It includes testing air defenses near a key nuclear facility and preparing for exercises in waterways vital to the global oil trade.

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Winds that have fueled LA fires expected to calm

Firefighters hoped for a break Friday from fierce winds that have fueled massive blazes in the Los Angeles area, killing 10 people, obliterating whole neighborhoods and setting the nation's second-largest city on edge.

The fires have burned more than 10,000 homes and other structures since Tuesday, when they first began popping up around a densely populated, 25-mile (40-kilometer) expanse north of downtown Los Angeles. No cause has been identified for the largest fires.

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US job market returns to normal after strike and hurricanes

Getting a clear view of the U.S. job market hasn't been easy the past few months.

Hurricanes and a big strike at Boeing threw off the October jobs numbers, pushing them down and setting up a payback rebound in November that likely exaggerated the strength of hiring.

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